The hottest restaurants to open in Melbourne in 2018
From a restaurant where every dish is tickled with smoke and touched by flame to a half-Italian, half-New York inspired pizza restaurant. Here are the nine hottest restaurants to open in Melbourne in 2018.
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From a flame, smoke and coal-powered take on contemporary Australian dining to a half-Italian, half-New York inspired pizza restaurant.
Here the nine hottest Melbourne restaurants to open in 2018.
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SUNDA
Within a stark cube of concrete, steel and glass that takes industrial chic to almost absurd levels, Khanh Nguyen melds Indonesian, Malaysian and Vietnamese cuisine with indigenous Australian ingredients.
Accomplished, wildly creative cooking that never forgets to be delicious, Sunda is an exciting ride through South East Asia on an Australian passport that’s one part Bintang, three parts brilliant.
18 Punch Lane, Melbourne
Ph. 9654 8190
Must eat dish: Vegemite curry roti
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chef: Khanh Nguyen
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch Fri, Tues-Sat dinner
BYO: No Licensed: Yes Separate bar: No
NAVI
Behind the ghostly gauze curtains of a small converted shopfront on a quiet residential street where the docks rumble in the background, you’ll find Navi, Melbourne’s newest destination fine diner.
It’s approachable, elegant fare that is technically dexterous yet never forgets to be delicious — see Macedon duck served on salted plum with a savoury duck custard on the side — or to have fun, such as a blue cheese-take on an old-school jelly slice.
While Navi — which means “local” in the Cherokee language of Hills’ father — is a win for the west, its charms are so persuasive, the cooking so deft, the vision so clear, it’s worth seeking out from afar.
83B Gamon St, Yarraville
Ph: 9939 9774
Must eat dish: Duck in two parts
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chef: Julian Hills
Price: $$$$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Wed-Sat dinner
BYO: Special bottles on request Separate bar: No
MATILDA
Matilda is chef Scott Pickett’s flame, smoke and coal-powered take on contemporary Australian dining.
Everything on the menu has been tickled with smoke and touched by flame, and highlights are many.
One of the city’s best octopus dishes — sea-salty, tender and textural with macadamia slivers — is reason enough to visit.
The wine list features a lovely selection of interest across all budgets.
A warm wonderland of flickering flames, Matilda is hot stuff.
159 Domain Rd, South Yarra
Ph: 9089 6668
Must-eat dish: Flinders Island lamb ribs
Chefs: Scott Pickett and Tim Young
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: lunch and dinner daily
BYO: No Separate bar: Yes
BAR SARACEN
Two of our city’s great hospo heads — Rumi’s Joseph Abboud and front-of-house pro Ari Vlassopoulos — have created a restaurant “of Middle Eastern appearance” in Bar Sracen. That looks like boreks filled with truffled egg and cheese (swoon) and smoky, soft eggplant with barbecue-burnt onions on a pool of fermented whey called kashik.
The food is excellent and keenly priced and the interesting wines — locals, plus a few from “wherever the Arabs have been” — are chosen for diners’ enjoyment not a sommelier’s ego.
It’s cheeky, delicious fun, as welcoming for a quick sip and snack as it is for making a full night of it.
22 Punch Lane, Melbourne
Ph: 8639 0265
Must-eat dish: Hummus
Chefs: Tom Sarafian & Joseph Abboud
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Tues-Fri 12pm-late; Sat 5.30pm-late
BYO: No Licensed: Yes Separate bar: Yes
CARLTON WINE ROOM
The 100-strong wine list is a labour of love filled with lesser-known grower/producers and while there’s a fair bit of skin-contact funkiness within, there are also ample approachable pours in gorgeous glassware for those who just want to drink, not think.
The menu is filled with big flavours and clever combinations. Plump mussels that taste of the sweet sea served with crunchy baby cucumbers, chickpeas, dill, and creme fraiche gets a big tick.
That dishes are offered in half sizes makes this the perfect spot for the solo diner, but it’s equally comfortable for groups. Warm and welcoming, and run by a team with hospitality in their DNA, a fine wine time is a given here.
172 Faraday Street, Carlton
Ph: 9347 2626
Must-eat dish: Kingfish crudo
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chef: John-Paul Twomey
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Dinner Tues-Wed 4-11pm; lunch and dinner Thurs-Mon 12-11pm
BYO: Mondays only Licensed: Yes Separate bar: Yes
CAPE SCHANCK
Overlooking manicured golf greens and wild coastal scrublands, emerging out of the hill, all undulating steel and rust, the new RACV resort is yet another architecturally impressive win for the Mornington Peninsula.
The menu at Cape teams high-end smarts with clever, keenly priced accessibility ($55 for two courses, $75 for three).
With its focus on Victorian produce and Peninsula wine, this restaurant on the green is gold.
Trent Jones Drive, Cape Schanck
Ph: 5950 8038
Must-eat dish: Stuffed chicken wings
Chef: Josh Pelham
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Dinner daily 6-8:30pm
BYO: No Licensed: Yes Separate bar: Yes, Lighthouse Lounge
GREASY ZOES
Greasy Zoes, a humble 15-seater out at Hurstbridge on Melbourne’s northern gumtreed fringe,
punches way above its weight.
This “produce driven” restaurant is run with no à la carte and no printed menu.
Instead, Greasy Zoes delivers a succession of dishes full of spark and invention.
With mostly organic ingredients sorced from local providores, the line-up is inclined to change every week.
The genuine hospitality that animates this very Australian dining room with its rough-hewn timber, red bricks and artisan oddments.
Greasy Zoes runs on real passion. Seek it out.
3/850 Heidelberg-Kinglake Rd, Hurstbridge
Ph: 9718 0324
Must-eat dish: Blue cod, parsnip and smoked mackerel jerky
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chef: Zoe Birch
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Dinner Thurs-Fri 5-11pm, Sat-Sun 3-10pm
BYO: No Licensed: Yes Separate bar: No
CONGRESS
Between two slices of fluffy soft white bread, a fat crunchy-fried panko puck is filled with deliciously gelatinous pork set with a chicken jus jelly that liquefies and bursts upon first bite, like a soup dumpling.
Meet the pig’s head sanga — Melbourne’s most unlikely snack of the year — served in one of the best-looking under-an-apartment-block restaurants Melbourne’s yet seen.
In the heart of hip Collingwood, Congress nails both the drop-in-for-a-bite and settle-in-for-the-night brief for those living above and around. but it’s the skill and warmth of co-owner Katie McCormack who looks after the floor that elevates Congress into a must-visit for those who don’t call postcode 3066 home.
Congress delivers style and substance in spades.
49 Peel St, Collingwood
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chef: Jack Stuart
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch Fri-Sat; dinner Mon-Sat
Go-to dish: Kangaroo pastrami
BYO: No Separate bar: No Drinks only: Yes
CAPITANO
It’s Italy via New York that’s landed with Melbourne brio in the city’s long-time heart of pizza and pasta, but Capitano from the Bar Liberty team, is doing “pie” differently.
Out of the oven, fabulously blistered black, the pliable and chewy bases with mozzarella, tomato and pecorino can come with a choose-your-own adventure of toppings — pickled chilli and rainbow chard is a veg-tastic winner — or as one of four suggestions that include a terrific garlic-heavy tomato sauce draped with plump Sicilian anchovies.
Capitano is a fast, fun Italian with swagger from a crew who know how to deliver good times in the glass and on the plate.
421 Rathdowne Street, Carlton
Ph: 9134 8555
Must-eat dish: Bone-in veal parmigiana
Cuisine: Italian
Chefs: Casey Wall & Blake Giblett
Price: $
Bookings: Yes
Open: Dinner nightly, lunch Sat-Sun
Mon-Fri 5:30-11:30pm, Sat 12pm-12am, Sun 12pm-11pm
BYO: No Licensed: Yes Separate bar: Yes
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